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Reaching Out For Belonging With CHELSEA WOLFE · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Chelsea Wolf and I'm excited to be coming
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: back to Australia and New Zealand. And yeah, I'm coming
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with my full band. We're going to be playing a
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: lot of songs from my new record. She reaches out to,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: She reaches out to, she as well as some older
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like classics to me at this
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: point because I've played them so much, but some songs
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: from the previous records, and I think it's going to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: be a lot of fun.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nopol, Chelsea, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me pleasure.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: So as you say, you hit Australia and New Zealand
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: in May for a run of shows starting in Perth
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  Speaker 2: on May the twenty first, and in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and Adelaide, Wellington and finished up in christ Church from
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: May the thirties. So here you only you packed it
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: ready to go?
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Not yet, but I do feel ready. I've already started practicing,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: like you know, I started practicing pretty early, so I'm
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: getting that part on lock. But I definitely need to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: pack now.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Had you last visited this side of the world in
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty too, so what's changed with that? Chelsea Wolfson's hand.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: It m M. I feel like I've you know, grown
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and changed as a person. I'm also still the same,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you know, as we all do. I think, you know,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I've toured so much with these songs now, and I'm
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just I've learned so much from them. I learned so
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: much from writing them, and I'm learning so much from
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: playing them. They're very like personal and also very universal.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So it's like each night I notice a different lyric
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: or something and kind of, you know, get present with
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that for a moment.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you obviously have a strong following IV
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: because last song you sold out pretty much the whole
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: tooral thing for memory. So what is it do you
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: think makes people on this side of the world connect
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: with your music?
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, I mean, I'm thankful that, like,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: you know, everywhere I've been able to go, there's been
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: a group of people who seem to kind of be
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: in the same wavelength as me.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like a little bit outsider. It was
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit dark, little tinge of goth a lot
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  Speaker 1: of introverts and freaks and weirdos, and also just you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: all sorts of people from all walks of life, So yeah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I gul put a little paint on it, but I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I definitely feel an energy from audiences around
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the world that have like a similarity and a community aspect,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: so it's really beautiful.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: You mentioned the fact that you got the full band
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: coming with you this time, so were you solo last
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: time out here?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Are you? Yeah? That was kind of an accident. A
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: couple of band members got COVID and had to stay behind,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and I soldiered on with and you know, sort of
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: quickly reworked the songs into an acoustic set, and I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: felt really bad about it, but I was also just
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: grateful that everyone was like accommodating and understanding, so it's cool.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It was it was an interesting like growth period for
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  Speaker 1: me actually, like learning how to be up on stage
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: by myself again. So I did learn something from it,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and I thought it was a cool experience. But I'm
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: definitely excited to be coming back with the full band
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: again because it's a lot of fun too.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: What I've heard of your music, I'll listen to a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: few songs well doing research listen atmospherics and soundscape seem
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to play a large part in your music, so in
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: then the studio is one thing, getting those sounds down
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: pat and getting them right, but not the live For Rena,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: is it difficult being out of integrate that into your music.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I've always loved using like guitar pedals on my
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: voice to kind of like give that extra bit of
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: texture and layers. And I think each of us have
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: played as players have like learned to incorporate textures into
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the way that we play. Whether it's like our drummer Jess,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: you know, like doing screeches on the symbols, or we've
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  Speaker 1: also incorporated some more electronic elements, like a like a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: drum trick. You know, she has a drum kit, but
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: also like a trigger to trigger some of the background sounds.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, depending on the tour, our bass slash
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: keyboard player Ben will bring different things like a pulsar
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  Speaker 1: drum machine or something, so we get a little bit experimental,
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  Speaker 1: a little different each tour and like how we achieve
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  Speaker 1: those textures. Yeah.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Now, you announced yourself to the world via your twenty
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  Speaker 2: ten debut album, The Grime and the Glow. So what
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: was the music for climate like back then when you
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: entered the music industry and where did you install a
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: music fitting.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Industially, I don't think it really fit in initially. I think, honestly,
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  Speaker 1: like when I was coming up, there was a sort
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  Speaker 1: of a wave of like darker music and and things
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  Speaker 1: like that just sort of bubbling up again, especially like
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: with women making that kind of music, and so at
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: first it was it was almost challenging because it felt
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: like there was I think it's still this way, but
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  Speaker 1: there was like a bit of like a competitive energy,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in a fun way that I didn't really feel.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't come into it with it, but I felt
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  Speaker 1: like I was like pushed back with a lot of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: sort of weird, combetitive energy. So it wasn't like the
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: easiest time to be making music at the time. But
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  Speaker 1: I just kept pushing on and doing my thing, and eventually,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: you know, found support and found record labels that were
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: willing to put my music out and stuff.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: So, and you've mentioned Grays a few times in this conversation,
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  Speaker 2: So like, what was your early musical vision I suppose
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  Speaker 2: when you started, and how has that changed and grown
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  Speaker 2: as he careers progressed.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when I was younger, I did like
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a very overproduced kind of record that once it was finished,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I just realized, like, that's not where I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: start with my music. So I sort of threw that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: away and went back to my roots of just recording
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: like one take low Fi using my old like H
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: track recorder and started from there because I just felt
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: like that was more like intrinsic to who I was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to make being a little bit messy and as you
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, kind of like cinematic and a lot of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: like different you know, sounds and capturing the sounds of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: spaces and rooms. So I started there with a grin
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and the glow, and then you know, slowly sort of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: more transformed out of band members. And then you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: as you get older, I think you kind of get
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: more comfortable with your voice, and then you start using
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: less and less effects and like letting yourself be heard more.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of where I'm at now, where like
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: with my most recent album, I really wanted to let
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: my vocals shine and be more present for the first time.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, musically, you still transcend as many genres. You've got
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: black metal in there, they scanned the night, and folk music,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: gothic rock, doing metal lot. Did you always intend on
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: bringing those elements together? Or was it more sort of
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: control an era and progression as you went.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I think it's just, yeah, it's very just like intuitive
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: for me, all those different influences that you've mentioned. You know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: there's country and trip hop and metal and black metal,
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  Speaker 1: even like I just want to to kind of find
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: my own way of taking what I loved about those
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: different genres and bringing them together in a new way.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And yeah, just kind of like came naturally for me.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's maybe been a hindrance to my career
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  Speaker 1: in a way because I've always been doing something that's
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit outside of the box and like not
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: easy to label. But at the same time, maybe that's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: kind of why what helped me forward as an artist
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: is like being a little bit weird and different, And
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: how do.
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  Speaker 2: You find the balance in the creative process, Like how
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: do you know when you're going too far in one
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: direction or maybe not far enough in another one.
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  Speaker 1: I think I'm like only learning that more recently, you know,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I think in the past, like I don't know, I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: don't really know how to find it. But now I'm
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: just like a lot more into spending the time that
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: it takes to like make the song right and I
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: don't know. I guess I don't know how to answer
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that one. I'm sorry.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: You mentioned your most recent albums. She reaches out, so
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: she reaches out to She, which tame me Out last February.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So how was that one received?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I think, well, yeah, I mean, I wasn't really sure
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: how people were going to feel about this one. It
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: feels a bit different to me. The songs were very
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: like rock and roll in the demo versions, and then
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: we brought them into the studio with producer Dave Sidek
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and then they became a lot more like electronic and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just very different from where they started. And so I
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: was kind of unsure, but I think it was really
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it was really well received and nice.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And you released two separate EPs featuring songs from the album,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: but you reimagined the song. So what was what was
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: the thought process behind doing that.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do a remix album, and I
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: felt like this one had the perfect sort of elements
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: that led itself to that. So we definitely wanted to
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: do a remix album and made that happen, which was great.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And then I was asked to do some sort of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, like small showcase thing where I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: had to strip the songs down to their acoustic versions,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and I found that I loved singing them like that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: so much, just like really focusing on just the voice
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and just the song structure itself, that I decided to
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: record a few songs like that as well, and that
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: became the second EP. So I loved that it had
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: these sort of three waves because the album title, you know,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: nods to the sort of like past, present, future. She
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: reached out to, She reached out to. She, So I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: loved that the album itself has sort of like three versions, Chelsea.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I've got a new segment called photo Bomb that I've
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: introduced so nicely. I go through your social media before
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: we chat, and I find a couple of photos that
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I find interesting. You want to i'd be more about.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: So I found this one of yours, Like it's it's
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: a sensational stage setup, like you put a lot of
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: thought and effort into that, Like what's what's actually going
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: on there?
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of my favorites. This is like
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the first time that I really conceptualized what I wanted
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the stage to look like. I wanted there to be
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: like a sort of like sacred circle that I was
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: standing in, And originally I was thinking maybe it'd actually
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: bring sticks and things like that, but I thought that
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: would be hard to make happen every night, a bit messy,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: so I commissioned a woman metal smith to actually make
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a stage craft with like lights incorporated and everything, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: then on her own she actually just made the little
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: tree chandelier that's off to the side. And I have
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: an amazed yeah, and have an amazing lighting director, John
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Michael in Switzerland, and he really like brought it all
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: together and created these like magical like portals behind me.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: So that was definitely one of my favorite shows that
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: we evergot to put on, and had to be good.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: For youture lot being you'd be able to fully immerse
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: yourself in what you don't like. Having those surroundings and
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: that's set around you have to be a right feeling.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really was special nice.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: And the other photo I've found is this one like
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: and it's obviously been taken from from music video, but
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: for some reason it grabbed me and I want to
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: know the story behind it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, actually I think that's just like me and my
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: friend on a walk perhaps alright, yeah, maybe you know
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what that's from, but my friend
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Sarah makes these like masks, and I feel like that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: might be a picture of her wearing one of the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: masks in the words, hey, there's.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Something about it was like quite alluring. It was a nice,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: cool photo.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. I haven't seen that one in a while.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: It's cool, all right, Josie what Thanks very much for
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: your time. The tour kicks off in Perth on May
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the twenty first and goes through Australia and New Zealand.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: So where can people get tickets to find out more
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: about it?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well the shows are being put on by Bird's Robe,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: so you can get tickets at birdsthrobe dot com. And yeah,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: they're looking forward to well, you call me